Reedy River

©Words by Henry Lawson, Tune by Chris Kemoter

        Henry Lawson has given us many vividword pictures of Australia around the turn of the century. "Reedy River" is one such picture, more evocative than descriptive about the story. The tune for the poem was written .by Chris Kemoter for a show called "Reedy River" over twenty years ago. I learned most of the song from Joanie Bronfman and Neal MacMillan, and Priscilla Herdman supplied the rest. (E.T.)

Ten miles flown Reedy River
a pool of water lies,
And all the year it mirrors
the changes in the skies.
Within that pool's broad bosom
is room for all the stars;
Its bed of sand has drifted o'er
countless rocky bars.

Around the lower edges
there waves a bed of reeds,
Where water-rats are hidden
and where the wild duck breeds,
And grassy slopes rise gently
to ridges long and low,
Where groves of wattle flourish
and native bluebells grow.

Beneath the granite ridges
the eye may just discern
Where Rocky Creek emerges
from deep green banks of fern,
And, standing tall between them,
the drooping she-oaks cool
The hard, blue-tinted waters
before they reach the pool.

Ten miles down Reedy River
one Sunday afternoon,
I rode with Mary Campbell
to that broad, bright lagoon;
We left our horses grazing
'til shadows climbed the peak,
And strolled beneath the she-oaks
on the banks of Rocky Creek.

Then home along the river
that night we rode a race,
And the moonlight lent a glory
to Mary Campbell's face.
I pleaded for my future
all through that moonlight ride,
Until our weary horses
drew closer side by side.

Ten miles from Ryan's Crossing
and five below the peak,
I built a little homestead
on the banks of Rocky Creek.
I cleared the land and fenced it
and plowed the rich red loam;
My first crop was golden
when I brought Mary home.

Now still down Reedy River
the grassy she-oaks sigh;
The water holes still mirror
the pictures in the sky.
The golden sand is drifting
across the rocky bars,
And over all forever
go sun and moon and stars.

But of the hut I built
there are no traces now,
And many rains have leveled
the furrows of my plow.
The glad bright days have vanished,
for somber branches wave,
Their wattle-blossom golden,
above my Mary's grave.

Reedy River is recorded on the CD The Ways of Man